Kurds plan counter-offensive against ISIS

Kurdish peshmerga forces are planning a counter-offensive against Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) fighters in northern Iraq after being routed by the radical Sunni insurgents Sunday, senior Kurdish officials said Monday.

One of the officials told Reuters the Kurds had been overstretched in a vast region but were now calling in a large number of fighters to hit back. "It is a very dangerous situation for the region. Something needs to be done soon," Reuters reported.

ISIS inflicted its first major defeat on the Kurds with a dramatic advance through three towns to reach the Mosul Dam, acquiring a fifth oil field to fund its operations along the way.

State television and witnesses said Sunday that the ISIS had seized Iraq's biggest dam. Kurdish peshmerga officials said they have pushed ISIS militants from the Dam area. This could not be immediately confirmed.

One peshmerga colonel who said the Kurdish withdrawal was tactical forecast that several Kurdish brigades would take back all territory lost on Sunday and even win back Mosul, Iraq's biggest northern city.

"We will attack them until they are completely destroyed we will never show any mercy," he said. "We have given them enough chance and we will even take Mosul back. I believe within the next 48-72 hours it will be over."